QUALITY IMPROVEMENT
Cannabis, Choice, and Your Community: Update on Practices and Problems
By Cynthia Helzel C
annabis, more commonly known as marijuana, is a hot-button topic in senior living.
Older adults are increasingly turning to
cannabis products to ease conditions such as arthritis pain, anxiety, and insomnia. Adult children are using it to try to treat mani- festations of dementia in their parents. In states where cannabis is legal, there’s a good chance that at least some residents in any given community are using it for medicinal and/or recreational purposes. Although a relatively small percentage of
seniors use marijuana, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health showed a 250% increase in its use among people aged 65 and up between 2006 and 2013. “It’s important for executives to pay
attention to this issue,” said Gabriela San- chez, shareholder and co-chair of the senior living and long-term care team at the law firm Lane Powell. “Based on the statistics and the changing perceptions of marijuana, people are going to demand use of marijua- na in their communities, and in fact they already are.” Ignoring the issue is not an option; provid-
ers could face legal consequences for non- compliance to laws related to cannabis use.
Smoking bans are widespread Although smoking is the most familiar form of cannabis use, it’s the one least likely to be permitted on community campuses. Most communities have no-smoking regulations, and those extend to include marijuana. “We actually recommend that you don’t
allow smoking of any kind of marijuana, whether it’s hemp CBD or marijuana-based CBD,” Sanchez said. “Everything should be non-smoking because if not, you bring into play all sorts of other laws.”
34 SENIOR LIVING EXECUTIVE MAY/JUNE 2019 These include state, local, and federal
laws, which sometimes contradict one an- other. The safest option for a community is to ban smoking and vaping of any kind. If smoking and/or vaping are permitted,
they must be restricted to areas where the smoke and vapors will not affect other peo- ple, such as in designated smoking areas or private rooms. Resident safety must be considered when
choosing these areas so as not to put smok- ers at risk by requiring them to go outdoors in frigid weather, for example. Fire safety is also a greater concern for communities that allow smoking of any kind.
Cannabis in dementia care Despite its popularity, little is known about the health benefits of cannabis. Federal restrictions have put severe constraints on research using human subjects. Most of the evidence for the benefits of cannabis is anecdotal.
Linda Jacobson is head of education &
outreach at KasanaCare, a California com- pany that advocates for safe and legal use of cannabis for people with dementia. She found that many senior living leaders are reluctant to talk openly about the subject. “But behind closed doors they will tell you that a lot of cannabinoid therapies have transformed their dementia care commu- nity,” Jacobson said. Caregivers and others say cannabis prod-
ucts such as sublingual tinctures are often used in attempts to reduce the anxiety, agita- tion, insomnia, and sundowning associated with dementia—again, based largely on anecdotal evidence.
Further research needed Studies using rodents have shown that can- nabis may have value in treating, prevent- ing, or even reversing some of the cognitive deficits associated with Alzheimer’s and other dementias. In addition, scientists at
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